


a little bit daft

by chasingblue57



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, One-Shots, Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:49:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1657112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingblue57/pseuds/chasingblue57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite genius level intelligence, impressive reasoning skills, and several advanced degrees, love can make anyone a bit daft. [A series of one-shots focused on Fitzsimmons, often featuring the team].</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. daft

It’s been fifteen days, four hours and twenty seven minutes since she woke up in a glass case frantically reaching for the reason she was able to wake up at all.

A lot has happened in those fifteen days, four hours and twenty seven minutes but not the one thing she wants most. The team has taken out Garrett. Ward is in custody. Nick Fury is alive. They’re at the Playground with another Agent Koenig, the whole of their team, a small group of doctors. Coulson has been tasked with rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. and they’ve spent countless hours slowly working out those details while small, silent splinter groups of the once massive organization take out Hydra agents at Coulson’s bidding. (Everyone left that Coulson trusts now knows he’s alive and working ‘round the clock to neutralize what remains of the organization).

It’s all wonderful, generally speaking, or would be if not for one important fact: Fitz has not yet woken up.

She’s let the world move around her, tucked up in a chair by his bed, eating when Skye drags her away, sleeping when Trip carries her sleeping body to a bed, bathing when Coulson gently suggests it and sipping tea whenever May silently brings her a cup.

Otherwise she sits and waits, occasionally reads books aloud or listens to old favorite songs, grasping the fingers of his unbroken hand and nearly chaffing the skin of his knuckles as her own fingers constantly ghost over them. It has, at the very least, given her a lot of time to think.

He loves her: there’s no denying what he’d meant in those last moments and while she’s never been sure herself about love, she thinks she must love him back. What else would one call this shift in her center of gravity, his sleeping body the only thing holding her anywhere? What else could explain the feeling settled deep in her chest that he is the only thing she cannot exist without? The endless cascade of tears, fears, hopes and joys as she relives moments of their combined Fitzsimmons life, aloud to him in the hopes of prompting him awake?

If all that isn’t love, what is?

—-

Fifteen days, four hours and forty two minutes after she wakes up in a glass case, he joins her.

She’s half asleep and almost misses it, almost dismisses it as fever-dream and hopefulness, but the second time she hears the startled, panicked rasp of her name, she can’t deny it.

Jemma Simmons unfurls from the chair and leans over him. “Fitz?” And is rewarded with the most breathtakingly beautiful, puzzled frown she has ever seen. 

"Jemma? How’m I alive?" The pain on his face is obvious, his head must be pounding and he’s sluggish as he wakes up for the first time in more than fifteen days, four hours and forty two minutes but it’s okay: he’s awake and he remembers and, judging by the uncomfortable shifting he’s doing, he can still move everything (though it’ll be stiff, sore and take some major PT to get back to full function). They can deal with the rest.

"You didn’t think I was going to let you die for me without a fight, did you Leopold Fitz?" Her chastising words have no bite, even if they did the tenderness of her expression would bely it. "You’re my best friend in the world and so much more than that—I’d rather die than have left you."

"You beautiful, daft woman," he mumbles, bringing their still joined (always, every moment she’s been by his side) fingers up to his lips to brush them against her knuckles before exhaustion promptly claims him back.

She smiles softly, “rest up Fitz. We have our whole lives ahead of us to argue about who the daft one is,” before running her fingers softly across his brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, to start, obviously I don’t own AoS. Someone on tumblr asked for a story where Fitz woke up and remembered Jemma, so this was born.
> 
> This will be a series of drabbles and one-shots of all sorts. I’ve a few written that just need polishing and plenty of other ideas, so stay tuned.


	2. lines in the sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Subtitled 'on the fate of spiders', this is a response to the domestic head cannon tag that floated around tumblr last week. Might expand on some of the others as well, but figured it would fit nicely here.

He discovers what Fitz will eventually call her ‘spider idiosyncrasy’ the day they move in together upon graduating from the academy.

After much discussion about moving tactics and strategies, they come to the agreement that the best plan of attack is to move all their things into the living room, sorting them into neat piles. They plan to clean each of the other rooms top to bottom before unpacking one at a time. Fitz queues up a playlist, Simmons breaks out the cleaning supplies and they decide to tackle the kitchen first (Fitz’s idea: obviously if they’re undertaking an overnight unpacking marathon, they’re going to need snacks).

They manage the kitchen just fine, working around each other as easily as they always have in labs (as easily as they will in their own lab, at SciOps, where they start in one week). Fitz washes out the cupboards, scrubs the shelves, while Jemma takes to the floor and counters and within the hour it’s shining and they’re debating the best places to house various utensils. By the end of the second, they’ve moved onto the bathroom.

That’s where the trouble starts.

Fitz is hanging up the shower curtains when he hears the shriek from the closet, where Jemma is currently nestled, putting things away. Miraculously, he manages to slip out of the tub without tripping on the half-hung curtain in his haste to find out what’s wrong. Peering around the open door, it takes just a short moment to deduce the problem.

Jemma Simmons, biochemist extraordinaire, who is regularly up to her dainty little elbows in guts and goo, is backed into the closet corner, facing off against a common house spider.

He fights, and loses to, the urge to laugh. “Really Jem? I’ve seen you dissect a tarantula without batting an eye.” He manages through a snort of deep laughter: he’s never seen anything shake the woman before.

She turns to him with a sharp look, eyes narrowed against the mock of his chuckles. “You have to draw your line in the sand somewhere Leopold Fitz—this one’s mine,” comes the prim, stern reply. “Need I remind you of the incident with the clown last autumn?”

Fitz isn’t a particular fan of spiders himself but without a word he heads out to the kitchen to retrieve a cup and scrap of paper, catches the offending arachnid and brings it outside for release. (He doesn’t have to ask to know Jemma will throw an even larger fit if he tries to kill the thing).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I do not own AoS. This is just another one-shot installment in the 'daft' series.
> 
> I've got a list of ideas started and will be posted a prompt # request on tumblr (which I'm calling Palindromic Sets), which will be another series in an of itself. Arm & Arm, my Pokemon AU, will be updated periodically as soon as summer hits and I can take a bit of backseat on teaching work and focus on writing.
> 
> Suggestions are always appreciated--if you have an idea you'd like to see a story (albeit, likely brief) for, just let me know. Thanks for all the kudos & support on the last chapter, you folks are lovely!


	3. Skype

The Academy does not run quite the way a university would—after all; it’s a training ground for special agents. Still, it breaks itself into fall, winter and spring terms with a week off between each and a month for the summer. Like many of the other, granted few and far between, international students Fitz and Simmons find it hard to justify either the expense or time to travel home during the week long breaks after fall and winter terms.

Luckily, their second week in they’d been assigned lab partners and had been fast friends ever since, helping to keep the homesickness and loneliness at bay. Now, however, they’re waiting at baggage claim at Heathrow and simultaneously keep an eye out for their families, home after nearly 11 months away.

Fifteen minutes later, suitcases in hand, greeting and introductions exchanged, they part ways with a quick hug and the press of Simmons’ lips against his cheek. “See you in a month,” she smiles. He nods and gives a squeeze, neither really contemplating just how long 4 weeks is.

—-

He hasn’t even made the long car ride back to Glasglow with his mum before he’s missing her. 11 months with Jemma Simmons no more than a ten minute, cross-campus walk away and suddenly he’s staring at twenty-nine long days. His mother is too filled with excitement and plans to notice his sudden shift in mood (and he’s glad, because he certainly doesn’t want her to think he’s not thrilled to see her again, he is).

He toys with his cell phone as they chat, fighting the urge to interrupt her family time just because he suddenly finds himself clingy and needy for her friendship when he’d never been that way with anyone before. They stop in Lockerbie for dinner, still a ways off from home, and he can’t bring himself to leave the phone in the car, slipping it in his jeans pocket. His hand rests twitchingly over it whenever he’s not in the midst of eating.

They’ve been back on the road ten minutes when he feels his cell vibrate in his pocket. At first he figures he’s imagined it, but the sensation startles him again, not fifteen seconds later and once more after that before he’s able to pull out the phone.

J Simmons (6:23 PM): I keep pausing midsentence, waiting for you to finish my thought or a story. I think my brother thinks I’ve lost it.

J Simmons (6:24 PM): Which is a strange way to convey that I miss you—which is silly, it’s only been six hours. 

J Simmons (6:24 PM): But then I think 29 days and feel a little less silly.

Fitz smiles, both at her words and his own relief. He’s not alone then, in feeling suddenly oddly lonely. He ponders how best to respond, trying to think quickly, knowing that somewhere in Sheffield, Jemma Simmons is probably still feeling very silly, despite her comments otherwise. 

L Fitz (6:27 PM): Skype later tonight?

He knows that she’ll understand that he feels the same without having to say it. The request to put forth effort to talk to someone not something he makes lightly (only for her or his mum). Sending off the text, he imagines the brilliant Jemma Simmons smile it will likely invoke and lets the thought of seeing it for himself in a few hours hold the missing-her at bay.

J Simmons (6:28 PM): Yes definitely—I’ll call at 10:30? You can’t be home yet and I’m sure you mother will want some time with you there.

L Fitz (6:29 PM): Forty-five minutes away yet. 10:30 is good. See you then.

He would feel ridiculous about how much better he suddenly feels except he doesn’t care. Instead, he spiritedly launches into a story for his mother and spends the last of their ride inquiring about the people in their neighborhood and letting her familiar voice share news about the people that make up her world.

—-

By a little after ten his mother has managed to fill him to the brim with tea and pie, show him every new thing she’s done to their small house since he’s been gone and pack in months worth of fussing before turning in for bed. He assures her he’s not long off himself, just a quick chat with Jemma first, and soaks in the warmth of her smile as she tells him how glad she is he’s found such a lovely friend.

Fitz grabs a quick shower to rid himself of the ick of travel before unpacking his things in his familiar old bedroom, laptop set up and just waiting for Jemma’s Skype call. Punctual as always, he’s in the midst of hanging up a sweater when she rings through at precisely 10:30. He drops the blue fabric to the ground in favor of answering and is greeted in exactly the way he expected: a dazzling, breathless grin and her eagerly launching into a greeting followed by a story about her brother and sister, with scarcely an inhale between them.

They talk for over an hour before the long day catches up with them, swapping yawns and trailing comments, both of them stretched over their own beds with the laptops on their stomachs.

“Maybe a little earlier tomorrow night, yeah?” He asks, surprisingly confident in the request. He’s never been one to put effort into friendships before but then again, he’s never had a friend like Simmons.

“Yes please,” she replies without even a pause to consider. “Maybe a movie night?”

Twenty-nine days and twenty-nine Skype sessions later, they’re both badgering around with hanging up. They’ve got early mornings ahead of them—especially Fitz, who has a far longer drive to Heathrow than she does—but both are as hesitant to end the call as the other. Finally, chivalry wins out as Fitz notices Simmons dipping in and out of sleep. 

“Simmons, get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon okay?” 

“Mmm,” she mumbles, smiling pleasantly despite being half asleep. “Be prepared to put up with an embarrassingly excited hug at the airport.”

“Can’t wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skype was prompt #17 on my tumblr prompt request list, Palindromic Sets. I just kind of invision them going home for the first time and feeling suddenly very lonely at the idea of so much time without seeing each other, so they end up Skype-ing every night. (Also, please note I've only used Skype once, so apologies if the usage language isn't entirely correct).
> 
> I'll be starting a series of AU one shots in the next day or so, which is also born out of that prompt requests, just to keep the possible separate from the very much not. So far I have a CSI story and a Percy Jackson story written out, so be on the lookout for that if you like.
> 
> (As always, by the by, don't own anything but the writing here).
> 
> Thanks for reading (& to all those leaving support) and if you have any suggestion or ideas, please feel free to comment below!


	4. Ordinary

“Do you ever stop and wonder what it would have been like if we’d been ordinary?”

They’re sprawled out on the hillside behind their home, basking in a rare sunny Scottish afternoon. Clouds as lazy as they are traipse slowly across a blue sky, dappling their thick carpet of grass from time to time. From his vantage point, laying uphill, arms below his head, hers pillowed across his stomach, Fitz can just barely make out the strands of her dark curls. His fingers thread through the trailing ends thoughtfully. “Ordinary?” He asks after a moment, searching for clarification.

“Where do you suppose we’d be if we still liked the things we did, but we weren’t quite so good at them?”

If he gets right down to the heart of it, he supposes they are fairly ordinary these days. At 31 years old, they’ve just recently retired from their extraordinary days as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, settling instead into a life of consulting for Coulson and working on projects from their home lab. But he understands what she means now and gives himself a moment to properly ponder the question, his fingers abandoning her hair and instead trailing down to rest on her slowly swelling stomach.

“I’d be an architect,” he ventures, smiling softly as her digits entangle with his. “Still designing, still some science and creativity but I’d sketch out buildings on graph paper and watch other men bring them to life.”

Her hum fills his ears for a moment, quietly agreeing with the train of thoughts. “And you’d be a professor maybe, teaching the freshman and sophomore biology courses at Cambridge—sweet Professor Simmons; all the students fighting for a better registration time to get into your classes.” This time it’s her giggle that spurs him forward.

“I’d be touring the school, helping with plans for a new building—student center maybe, or a laboratory—and I’d see you ordering tea across a room at some point. And all I’d be able to think the rest of the day is, Lord alive but that is the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in all my days. I’d come back a dozen times just to find you again.”

“A dozen? Hufflepuffs are better finders than that,” Jemma teases, arching and turning slightly, pressing a kiss against his shoulder before her eyes tell him to continue. 

To his credit, he lets the Hufflepuff crack slide without a word (it’s an argument he and his Gryffindor wife have had many a time). “Yes, a dozen. You’re a very popular professor. At any rate, when I finally managed to spot you, I’d walk straight out of whatever meeting I was in just to ask you out for a tea.”

“Straight to a girl’s heart Leo Fitz.”

His scowl has no heat, she can tell now that she’s turned on her side, watching the thoughts play about his expression as he weaves together a life for an Ordinary Fitz and an Ordinary Simmons (she loves that even ordinary, their lives lead them towards Ordinary Fitzsimmons—which is truly the most extraordinary thing she can imagine).

“But it would be a gorgeous autumn day so we’d take tea to go and walk through the campus trails. I’d talk about the shapes of the buildings and fall in love with the stories you tell me about them, the way yours eyes light up as a student stops you for a comment about something from lecture, and the wrinkle of your nose as you try and out architecture me on a fact.”

“That does sound rather like me,” she admits, falling into one of said nose scrunches.

He leans forward to kiss it before wrap up. “Somehow I’d manage to charm you into a second date nonetheless, and then a third. A year later, I’d stumble through a proposal at that very same coffee station and we’d have a fall wedding, underneath all the colors. Then a baby later, and a house of our own. You’d probably trick me into getting a dog.”

Her laugh rings out and rolls down the hillside, back towards their home. The sharp suddenness of the sound calls the attention of a Brittany spaniel, previously dosing near the garden. Its head perks up and within moments the fall of orange and white enthusiasm is barreling for them. “I rather like Ordinary Fitz and Ordinary Simmons.”

“Me too,” he grins, laughing along with her and scratching the dog behind its ears when it hovers suddenly them.

“I especially like that they have the same happy ending as Real Fitz and Real Simmons.”

“Well, Real Fitz and Real Simmons are both pretty extraordinary and ordinary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally planned for Prompt 7: Ordinary to be an AU but then this cropped up. Obviously this would take place in a potential future where they've retired from active agent-ing but work as consultants.
> 
> Yes, I think Fitz would be a Hufflepuff. That'll potentially be explored in an installment of every bit of energy, my AU collection.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated and if you have any prompts, feel free to leave them in comments and I'll gladly tackle them. Currently working on a follow up to Skype which should be up in the next week or so (as soon as school is over and I've got grades submitted for all my students).
> 
> Thanks for all the support so far, you guys are wonderful!


	5. Wedding

He’s 22 and in his second year at SciOps when a letter he never expects arrives in the mail. He’s making tea to get them both over a long day in the lab as Jemma sorts through their mail. Upon seeing the Glasglow postmark, she opens the letter excitedly, assuming that his mother has sent it.

She hasn’t. Instead it’s from another member of the Fitz family: a cousin Jemma has only met once but whom Leo was actually quite close to as a boy.

“Anything interesting Simmons?” He asks, coming around from the kitchen with two steaming mugs in hand, settling one in front of her on the dining table. She trades him the invitation for her tea, nodding.

“Seems your cousin Malcolm’s getting married in April.”

He brightens, a chuckle rising through his throat. He’s fond of few enough of his family except for his mother but she knows that Malcolm is a general exception. Three years older and with the compassion of a saint, the boys had gotten on well growing up. “Good for him,” is the sincere reply as he takes the letter and scans its contents. “Do you want to go?”

This invitation surprises her as much as the one from his cousin doesn’t. She supposes it shouldn’t; after all, he currently has no one else to take, would not particularly enjoy being there alone and knows how much she adores seeing his mum (and vice versa).

They set about making arrangements, settling flights and travel plans with his mother, arranging for a few days off work, the matter settled by the roll of Fitz’s eyes when she asks if he’s sure.

—-

The ceremony is lovely under a bright Scottish sunshine (a blessing in itself, since more time went in to preparing for the seemingly unavoidable rain than any chance it would be nice enough for an outdoor wedding). Fitz and Simmons sit with his mother and he teases her under his breath as she tears up during the service. Her nudge to the shoulder turns to leaning against it and Fitz just smiles, wrapping a friendly arm about her and letting his fingertips rest against the soft cotton of her dress.

When the ceremony draws to a close, they join the queue to give their first congratulations, somehow losing Mrs. Fitz in the fray of relatives but managing to stick close together. Upon reaching Malcolm the stocky twenty-five year old pulls Fitz into a squeezing hug before shuffling him out of his arms and drawing Simmons in instead. “It’s good to see you Leo, and your lovely friend here as well, thanks for coming.” His fingers catch the elbow of his bride, turning her attention from whomever she’s been talking with. “This is my beautiful Cait. Cait this is my cousin Leo and his friend Jemma, in from work in the states.”

They exchange loose(r) hugs and greetings, Simmons gushing about how lovely the service was and how good it is to see such a happy day for two such happy people. Eventually the line beckons and they shuffle off, taking the car to meander toward the reception site, his mother captured off by her sister and brother in-law.

They bide the waiting time in the small town, traipsing through quiet Scottish streets, stuck in easy chatter. It’s the same way they work through dinner, seated at a table with his mother, aunts, uncles and a few other cousins. Fitz is at ease in a way he rarely used to be here at home, spurred by the relative confidence that has come from being sure of one’s place in life and the steady presence of a friend.

Hours melt away and the evening dies down. The newlyweds take the floor for their first dance before inviting others to join them. Jemma tugs Leo out to the dance floor, despite his protests, once his mother mentions how apt he actually is at it.

“Fitz please,” she begs, a smile playing on her lips as she pulls at the hand she’s captured. “I’ve got to see this for myself.”

The way she says it, so like a scientist and yet so not, eyes bright and her expression unusually open (even for Jemma) seals it. He can’t possibly say no. With a long-suffering sigh that contradicts the slow grin spreading across his features, he lets her haul him up and off.

The sound of her laughter (bright as her eyes), the steady warmth of her hands, and the look of utterly pleased surprise on her face as he expertly leads her across the dance floor makes it more than worth it. He so rarely gets to surprise this wonderful woman, his very best friend, who knows everything about him almost, that he can’t help but feel a little bit smug and satisfied. The song melts into something slower and this time he lets her take the lead as she presses closer, hands moving to wrap around his neck, head resting against his collarbone. The utter lack of distance is comfortable, familiar as everything else in their friendship.

“Thanks for inviting me to come along Fitz,” she murmurs contentedly after a moment.

As if he would leave her behind anywhere. “Of course Simmons,” he smiles, settling his head against hers as they sway lazily.

“You do realize this means I’m officially claiming you to be my date for Heather Sorenson’s wedding, right?” He doesn’t need to see her expression to know it’s playful—the tone of her voice does it for him.

He laughs, thinking there are worse ways to spend a wedding (whether it be amongst family or old Academy friends). “Of course Simmons.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> & so here is Wedding, number 16 in my Palindrome prompts set. I'm taking a group of students to a convention this week so I'm not sure if I'll be posting a lot or not at all, depending on down-time in the evenings. Hopefully I'll manage to snag some time for some updates to this & every bit of energy and get some time to start outlining and working more in depth on arm & arm.
> 
> Thanks for all the support so far and, as always, feedback is greatly appreciated. If you have an idea you'd like to see done, either a simple or more complicated prompt, feel free to ask it. Relatively 'in-world' dribbles fit here but I'm glad to do au's as well, for every bit of energy.
> 
> Take care & best wishes!


	6. Skype, follow up

Jemma Simmons is many things—brilliant, clever, creative, optimistic, friendly and honest. She cannot tell a lie for the life of her and so, really, Fitz shouldn’t be surprised when her warning the previous evening turns out to be spot on.

He and his mum are meandering through the airport, both a little heavy eyed from the long trip and early morning, enjoying their last span of time together for the foreseeable future. He’s midway through his usual reassurances (Yes, he’ll study hard. Of course he’ll be polite with his professors, even if he already knows what they’re teaching. He’ll brush his teeth and do his laundry regularly and of course he’ll keep on eye on that sweet girl he’d been chatting with all break) and so manages to completely miss noticing her at first.

At least until a warm, familiar voice gives a shout from halfway down the line of ticket counters. Startled midway through a sentence, he abandons the well-meant platitude and looks up: clear, blue eyes casting about for the source of the sound. A relative distance away he spots four vaguely familiar looking people—a middle aged man and woman and two teenagers—looking entirely bemused amidst a small heap of abandoned luggage. Somewhat closer, and rapidly approaching, is a very familiar person, striding so quickly over that her long, dark curls are fanning out behind her as she picks up speed, all but jumping into his outstretched arms to close the final feet.

He can’t help but return the embrace with an equal measure of enthusiasm, though it’s coloured with a hint of embarrassment as well. His cheeks dust red, well aware of the gazes of his mother and the Simmons family. He knows his reaction surprises his mother: even for as much as he’s talked to and about Jemma Simmons over the last few weeks, seeing him this tactile with anyone is a shock for Helen Fitz.

He can only imagine what her parents and siblings must think. Surely they know that personal space is a laughable concept with Jemma but still, he is a veritable stranger and yet is tightly tangled in the eldest Simmons daughter as if they’ve been friends for a lifetime and not a year.

Still, it’s impossible, even if the brief moment he looks, to miss the warmth in her mother’s eyes (just the same shade as hers), the fondness in her father’s smile, the barely-kept-at-bay teasing both her younger siblings are containing. Briefly he closes his eyes, gives a final squeeze before they separate and Jemma is talking a mile a minute about everything, even though they’ve talked every day since last month and have spent half their morning’s texting.

She finally takes a breath as their parents approach from either side, but not before meeting his eyes to mutter a very sincere, “I missed you,” which he returns with equal sincerity. And then their parents are there as well, exchanging greetings and asking about breaks and wishing them well with tearful hugs and good byes.

Two hours later, settled on the plane with a movie playing on their laptop and a headphone each, Simmons rests her cheek against Fitz’s shoulder to better see the screen. “Sorry for embarrassing you in front of everyone in the airport. I know you don’t like to make a big scene about those sorts of things.”

He smiles, the shoulder she’s leaning on lifting and falling with a shrug. “It’s alright Simmons—you gave fair warning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So MFY11EP asked for a follow up and while it's been absolute ages, I did finally deliver. Just a brief little look into them reuniting with the embarrassing hug and Jemma being adorably enthusiastic about everything.
> 
> Hopefully should be posting more one-shots in the future both for this and every bit of energy. Seems like the school year is when I want to do all my writing. I've got a few prompts started, and a few others waiting in the wings. If anyone has any ideas they'd like to see, feel free to let me know.


	7. Vacation

The whole world crashes down around them and the dust takes months (& years no doubt) to settle. Betrayals and injuries, jumbled memories and stiff muscles, blocked doors and wiped histories pull at their footsteps until it’s finally (mostly) over. S.H.I.E.L.D. is small again, more like what it was once dreamed of being, and their team is still their team but not right this second. 

Coulson insists on time off. Two weeks to rest, refocus, see loved ones and find the people they’ve lost in themselves through the devastation. Trip goes to see his family, Skye takes a few days in her van before deciding on a visit with Ace, May and Coulson take a whole day off before they don’t. Fitz and Simmons go to Hawaii (with a planned stop over in the UK of course).

They splurge money they usually never spend, too busy working and making it to actually do much beyond paying out basic living expenses. They get a two-bedroom suite on Oahu, an ocean view with a patio that leads straight to the beach (their unspoken goal to get over a newfound fear of the water) and spend almost the whole first day asleep. When they finally feel rested, the sun’s slipping down the horizon, painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and red.

Fitz is buried in the room service guide when he looks up to see Simmons slide open the glass door, stride out and settle into the sand. For a long moment he is caught up in the way the colors of sunset dance across her profile, softening already impossibly soft edges and tugging his already completely-tied-to-her-heart a little further from his own chest. Menu forgotten, he could watch her like this for a lifetime and never get over the view. But she shivers, a tiny little tremble brought about by the ocean breeze and waning light and, as he always does, Fitz responds to her needs.

He tugs the sweatshirt he’d been wearing on their flight from a chair and joins her on the sand, dropping the light heather fabric over her shoulders before settling beside her (only just barely brushing her forearm with his). Her smile is softer than sunset, warmer than the tropical air, more refreshing than any ocean breeze and he drinks it in. The only thing better than the glow of that expression is the casual, completely-at-ease way she leans against him within a heartbeat of him sitting down.

“This is nice,” she murmurs, many moments later, breaking a comfortable silence for equally comfortable conversation. His hum of agreement is all she needs to smile again, press a kiss to his cheek and wrap herself more securely in his embrace. In a few careful shifts, she finds herself curled in his lap, his head atop her own, lost in a world within a world.

“Don’t suppose Coulson’ll make it a regular tradition, time off?” He wonders aloud, knowing that even worlds within worlds don’t stop for anyone, even if in this moment he chooses to ignore it. This may well be their only vacation for a long time coming, what with the world constantly seeming to want to go to hell in a hand basket at every odd interval.

“We can always hope,” but she knows as much as he does that this brief sojourn is just that: brief. And rare and impossibly more precious for all that and for all that it has taken them to get to it.

“Best make the best of it then, eh?” He extricates himself carefully from her without ever completely letting go, gripping her fingers in his and tugging her upward. “Can I tempt you with a walk on the beach?”

Even for her, lighthearted and gentle as she can be, the giggle his question spawns in uncharacteristic. A multitude of replies come alive only to die on her tongue: sassy comments, teasing comments, sweet ones and entirely innocent ones but her silent squeeze of their interlocked digits says them all as she abandons her flip-flops and follows him anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vacation is a quieter one, but there it is. As always, I don't own AoS and I'm always glad for any prompts and requests. My next update will probably be for 'every bit of energy' and will be a teacher themed au, should be up within the next week or so.
> 
> Thanks for any and all feedback, take care!


	8. in your name [I Pray]

Leopold Alexander Fitz has never really believed in a God. Even from a young age his beliefs were grounded in science: things that could be seen and felt, that held true against the test of time, that grew and changed and were shaped by discovery. To him, faith was found in the familiar steps of theory, design, practice and, occasionally, even in people (his mother and then Jemma, eventually even their team, foolish as that suddenly seemed).

Yet for all that, he can’t help himself, in those first moments after the fall. He prays to a God he has never believed in with a ferocity he never imagined himself to have. He prays and begs for some way out of this mess.

If God exists, he is a cruel master. They find a way to survive. One of them anyway. Cruel but comforting: at least he can save Jemma. At the end of the day, he supposes that’s all that matters.

(It’s little comfort as she chokes out tears and covers his face with kisses that feel so much more like desperation and goodbye then he would like. Even still, he knows it’s worth it, hard though it is).

He takes one final breath, watches her with sorrow and undisguised love and absolute anguish, and presses the button.

And he prays to a God he never believed in, bargaining whatever his soul might be worth, that she will survive knowing he’d give a thousand lifetimes and die a thousand deaths, suffer whatever fiery eternity he must, so long as she has a chance.

—-

Jemma Catherine Simmons remembers a time when she was very small when her family attended Church service each Easter and Christmas, an appeasement to her grandmother. She even remembers a time when she believed in the old traditions and ideas, a time before they fell away to science: to observation and data, to cells and matter, to things that could be tested or dissected. Her love shaped her faith, didn’t steal it, but changed the place where it lay: in science and life and the people and things that made each day new.

Yet for almost a lifetime of seclusion from any supreme being, she finds herself desperately praying to a God she’d long since left to keep him safe. That somehow, someway, he will wake up unaffected, still the Fitz she knew and loved and could not (would not) truly live without.

It’s after now: Garret is gone, Hydra is cracking, their team is reunited at the Playground. It’s been almost 48 hours since Nick Fury showed up to pull them out of the water.

If God exists, he is a cruel master.

They’ve both survived what seemed unsurvivable. Cruel but comforting: it’s more chance than she thought they would have when he pressed the mask to her hands and hit the button. He’s alive and right now, that’s what matters.

It’s little comfort as she watches the monitors, unchanging and unresponsive, telling her that living is the minimum he is doing, holding on without grasping, existing without truly living.

He’s still and silent and nothing like Leo Fitz and she sits by his bedside, lulled to silence by the beeps of his monitors, fingers alternating between tangling with his and running through his curls. She has scarcely moved since they settled him and she doesn’t plan to anytime soon. How could she leave this man who had put his life into a bargain for hers? Who, through tears and at the end of possibility, showed her just how much he loved her and forced her to live in a world where his future was uncertain?

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

She sighs, tears tracking silent streams across her cheeks, and bows her head.

And she prays to a God she stopped believing in, bargaining whatever her soul might be worth, that he will make it through this, still Fitz, knowing she would give a thousand lifetimes and die a thousand deaths, suffer whatever fiery eternity she must, just to live the rest of this life with him by her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I mentioned a teacher au addition to every bit of energy, but then I remembered I had this one sitting about finished and decided to post it first. I have a bit of a fascination with examining characters religious beliefs, particularly those that seem not to have them. I like the idea that even those who don't believe, for whatever reason, still fall back into old traditions and find comfort in them regardless their belief in their legitimacy. Potentially something I'll explore more in the future.


End file.
